It Takes An Ocean Not To Break
by Insomniabug aka BabyBrown
Summary: In the end, it's only two months before she's pregnant. (Super Angsty Wolfgang/Kala. Minor Will/Riley & Hernando/Lito.)


**Title:** _It Takes An Ocean Not To Break  
_ **Pairing:** Kala/Wolfgang, minor Will/Riley  & Lito/Hernando  
 **Disclaimer:** This show owns me so bad. Title from The National and lyrics from The Script.

* * *

 _And I hurt so bad, that I search my skin  
_ _For the entry point, where love went in_

 _And ricocheted and bounced around  
_ _And left a hole when you walked out_

* * *

In the end, it's only two months before she's pregnant.

It's Riley who tells her, hand pressed cautiously against their belly, pain echoing through the psycellium. Kala, tears streaking down her cheeks, doesn't hesitate before reaching out to her, wiping away the mascara tracks on her face.

Will's presence isn't far. Even under sedation, he can feel her pain, his strong arms instinctively wrapping around them as he lies unconscious on a seedy motel bed. Riley immediately sinks into his embrace, concentrates on matching her breathing to his. It doesn't take away the heartache, but it makes them feel less alone.

Kala begins to worry. They still haven't shed themselves of Whispers and his insidious threats. They can all sense him on Will's bad days, when he lies in pools of sweat and not even Riley can tame the tremors. So she starts praying to the gods she believes in, which now arent exclusively the ones she was raised with. Capheus tells her to have courage, believes everything will work out in the end and beams at the thought of a child. Sun cracks her knuckles, reminds her they have her fists.

Kala finds it comforting to know her child will have protectors scattered all over the earth.

One by one she feels the support thrumming down their shared connection, like notes on a guitar. Reassuring her that no one will harm her or her child, that no one will tear their cluster apart.

All except _one_.

From time to time, she gets a pounding migraine out of nowhere. Or the sensation of moss on her teeth, like they haven't been brushed, although she swears she did just that morning.

Rajan assures her it's normal, that her body is going through many miraculous changes, and they will all feel strange to her. He rubs her belly with such love and devotion, Kala almost convinces herself she feels love for this man she's tied her life to.

But then the headache returns, worse than before, and her knuckles begin to ache, like she's spent hours bashing them against a wall. Sun swears it isn't her doing, and Lito claims his acting jobs of late have only involved telenovelas…unless she counts love scenes with an over eager costar as hazardous stunt work.

 _It's him._

She knows it, can feel it even though he's blocked her out somehow, refusing to let her in. No one mentions it, but they all take turns watching him. Lito reassures her that he's just expressing his emotions the only way he knows how with alcohol and fighting. And Nomi makes sure to hack away any trace of him in the rare instance he gets himself in trouble with the cops. Sun's there to provide back up, but mostly he can take care of himself. Out of all of them, she spends the most time with him, as him, acting out the anger and despair they both feel over a father's cruelty and loss of a brother.

But one night, three weeks after she begins to feel life stirring inside her, she sees him. She's not sure where he is, but he's alone on a rooftop with half an empty bottle of vodka on the blacktop beside him. It invokes the moments atop her temple, of singing and gravity, and she wonders if he chose this location for a reason.

She tries to breathe through the pain she feels in his chest, fights back tears.

"I have been worried."

"I didn't want to see you." He refuses to look at her, eyes instead looking out over the city lights. She moves closer, but does not sit next to him. Standing over him gives her the illusion of power and it is the only thing keeping her from breaking down.

"And now?" Finally, he looks up at her, eyes pale with exhaustion.

"I'm tired of missing you, of fighting against you."

"I never wanted that. "

"I know, I could feel it." So while she was oblivious to most of his emotions, he had been fully impacted by hers. It suddenly became the saddest thing she's ever heard.

"Wolfgang, you are not a monster. I could not feel the way I do if you were."

She feels him wanting to reach for the bottle, longing to follow Will in dreamless sedation. Kala immediately throws the bottle over the roof's edge, wincing when she hears it shatter below. She thinks she sees a corner of his mouth lift, but it's probably just a trick of the shadows on this dark roof.

"I am not a good influence for you."

"You are not my father. Do not presume to think you have control over my actions."

"You once called me a demon. Maybe you should trust that instinct."

"I was frightened, and believed the gods were punishing me." She's suddenly tired, so very tired. Slowly lowering herself next to him, they both feel their connection begin to hum loudly in their chests. Kala understands from Riley that it's the psycellium, a chemical nervous system that can be measured and quantified, but Kala can't help but feel it is her very soul that is reacting.

To her surprise, she feels his hand rest atop hers. Her skin crackles, like fireworks are exploding inside her veins.

She takes a deep breath before speaking. "Maybe they still are. How else could I explain how I feel about you. How my heart both stops and races whenever I think about you. How with one touch you fill my life with more happiness and sadness than I ever thought possible."

Vaguely, she feels another hand atop of hers. She looks up and sees Riley's hazel eyes smiling lovingly back at her as she feeds her a piece of fruit, the sweet apple heavenly on her starved tongue. She feels Hernando's soft lips against hers as he leans across the breakfast table. She shakes Will and Lito off, feels a surprising emptiness when she does.

Kala pulls her hand away from Wolfgang. Sometimes when more than one of the cluster is feeling similar emotions at once, like love, they bleed together until one cannot tell the difference between the other. It can be confusing, especially now with Wolfgang. She sees the same war in his eyes, feels the temptation to forget themselves and give in to their emotions. But then he looks down at the new position her hands have taken, protectively curved against her belly, and it's like a door has been slammed in her face.

"I'm sure your husband must be very happy." She feels him bite back the jealousy he feels, the refusal to even say his name.

"He is. My whole family is thrilled. Even my father in law."

"And what about you?" Nothing escapes him, this man who should not know her as well as he does.

She wants to lie, to tell him her life is exactly as it should be. Happily married to Rajan with his child growing inside her. But lies inside a cluster are useless.

"I feel…conflicted."

"Because of me." She can feel him begin to withdraw, begin crafting the walls he used to keep her out. Her hand grasps his before he can.

"Because of me." She looks down at their fingers, and for a moment sees Sun's bloody knuckles. "I love my child, more than I thought possible…" Suddenly without warning, she's looking down at a lifeless newborn, the icy wind against her face and a chill she never knew possible settling in her bones.

Kala shudders and Wolfgang wraps an arm around her without hesitation. The memory that does not belong to her fades, but the despair lingers.

"But I do not love him." Her voice is unsteady as she speaks, but they both hear, both feel the iron certainty beneath her words.

The connection between them vibrates again, louder than before, and this time they do not fight against it. They, like the others, are beginning to realize it is futile. It would be like fighting the instinct to breathe.

His hand caresses her neck, surprisingly gentle, and a shiver runs down her spine, mirroring the one he feels as she softly presses the pads of her fingertips against his cheek.

They've only touched in their minds, but the sensation is more real, more concrete, than anything they've ever felt. When his lips brush against hers with a strange familiarity, Kala briefly wonders if their unexplainable connection is the only reason why she feels the way she does for this broken man.

But then she remembers touching Capheus or Will did not cause her blood to burn. She remembers Riley's reaction to Will, the immediate connection and the impossibility of love reawakening in her heart. Yet the emotions did not belong to her. They did not touch her the way they touched Riley and Will. There is still that unique quality that keeps her _herself_ , and it is that part of her that longs for Wolfgang. A warm echo in her soul tells her it's the same for him.

"I have to go." She doesn't want to, really doesn't want to, but she can feel herself falling deeper into him. Knows that it'll only cause her more pain when he pushes her away again, because he will. She knows it as well as she knows her father's favorite recipes.

He swallows the words from her mouth into his, pulling her ever closer towards him. "Not yet." He growls back, hands clutching her back. For a moment, a blissful eternity, she relents, clutching him as tightly as he does her. Being in his arms makes her feel more devout, more touched by god, than the years spent on her knees in a temple ever did.

It takes all her effort, all her heart to push back, but she does. And when she wakes, it's with a fractured soul and tears dripping on her pillow.

"Are you alright, my love?" Rajan speaks from beside her, voice groggy and eyes tight with worry, and she feels horribly guilty. This husband of hers is a good man, and it is not his fault that she does not love him.

"Yes. I just had a bad dream."

"I told you not to watch such violent films." Ever since that night with Capheus, Kala has had a taste for action films.

"You were right, as always dear husband." She appeases him, wants to run screaming from his arms.

Satisfied that all is right in his world, Rajan kisses her forehead and falls right back to sleep.

She wants to argue, to thrash and scream against Wolfgang's walls until they break. To force him out of the misguided belief he was unworthy. But she doesn't know if the impulse is Sun or Lito's, or her own.

"It is for the best Kala." Capheus. She doesn't see him, but she hears him, miraculously feeling him across space and time. "He needs…"

"…time to believe." Nomi finishes Capheus' thought, phantom pains in her voice.

"And time to heal." Riley adds, and Kala can feel hope as she runs fingers through Will's hair as he sleeps.

One by one, they all gather in her mind, unseen but strongly felt.

All except one.


End file.
